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Norwich – The effects of the coronavirus pandemic continue to have a profound impact on the district’s youngest learners.
Christina Carter, a parent of kindergarten and second grade students at Moriarty Environmental Sciences Magnet School in Norwich, said some kindergarten students had never been in a school building before because the typical preschool experience was altered by the pandemic. The difficult transition has resulted in behavioral issues that make her fear for the safety of her children and teachers in the school system, she said.
Carter said there was an incident Monday in which a behavioral therapist in Moriarty was punched in the face by a student, requiring an ambulance trip to hospital for a concussion. Carter said she found out because she knew the staff member personally.
“I’m nervous about sending my kids to school every day because I know about it, but what else is going on? No one has mentioned it,” she said. “It’s really scary.”
While Carter classified the incident as an assault, school superintendent Kristen Stringfellow denied that there was any assault.
“There are no children who molest teachers,” she said. “I’m sure of that.”
Stringfellow in a phone interview on Friday said the children had suffered “quite a bit of trauma” throughout the pandemic, including the loss of family members to COVID-19, their own illnesses and extreme isolation.
“Now that they’re going back to school with all of their friends, some of them – especially our younger preschool and kindergarten students – are having a hard time making the transition,” she said. “And that’s to be expected.”
Stringfellow said she couldn’t comment on medical issues involving staff members or students.
Norwich Police said there was a call for service from Moriarty on Monday at 11:24 am The US ambulance had been dispatched, but the police had not. Police would have responded if there had been any indication that an assault had taken place or that a mental health crisis was involved, the department said.
An American Ambulance employee did not have immediate access to information about the call and could not clarify whether anyone had been taken to a hospital.
Carter said behavioral issues she had witnessed while dropping off her children included screaming and swearing. She said the stories of misconduct her youngest daughter told in class have not improved since starting school six weeks ago.
Stringfellow said the district had prepared for what it knew to be a difficult transition by putting fewer children in classrooms, adding behavioral supports and teachers, and attending trainings.
She said that before the pandemic, a behavioral health structure involving teams of registered behavior technicians would be sent to different schools as needed. Now, it has between one and three dedicated therapists in each school.
She estimated that the district has tripled its staffing of behavioral technicians, although she said it could always use more.
US Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, spoke about the importance of behavioral supports in schools during a press conference Friday outside the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. He was there to talk about the mental health crisis in children and its effect on the hospitals that serve them.
He said one way to reduce the number of hospitalizations is to treat mental health issues before they reach a critical point. He cited funding for mental health screenings and more behavioral health supports in schools as essential to achieving this goal.
“COVID cases may go down. Infection rates may go down and we can start to turn around this pandemic, but the psychological effects will be long lasting,” he said. “We will be haunted by the psychological effects of COVID on our children for years to come. “
Staff shortages don’t help
Carter and Stringfellow both agreed that staff members leaving education and the lack of candidates to replace them is a problem amid the pandemic.
Stringfellow said schools statewide are experiencing staff shortages. In Norwich, this manifested itself most deeply among teachers, paraprofessionals and substitute teachers.
Carter, a member of the school’s parents and teachers organization, said she volunteered to help out in class because there was not enough coverage from para-educators. She heard of students in a fourth grade class who had to be separated and sent to different classrooms because there were no substitute teachers available.
Stringfellow said some staff have decided that “teaching or being a para is not what they want to do for the rest of their lives.” Others are on typical maternity or surgery leave.
“There aren’t as many people in the workforce after the pandemic, and it’s been a struggle,” she said, citing particular difficulty in finding teachers in special education, math and of science.
The district lost two math teachers and two science teachers at Kelly STEAM Magnet Middle School and an art teacher at Teachers’ Memorial Global Studies Magnet Middle School, she said. With the hiring of more teachers this week, she called the situation an improvement, but said the district was not yet at full capacity.
Moriarty’s principal, Kathryn O’Donnell, started this year after being selected in August from a group of finalists selected through the search for a new principal at the Wequonnoc Arts & Technology Magnet School, according to the district. She replaced Kristie Bourdoulous, whose last day was August 20. O’Donnell was the science and technology program coordinator for the Wallingford School District, the Norwich District said.
For Carter, the biggest problem with the situation in Norwich Public Schools is the lack of communication with parents about behavioral issues in the classroom. She also said an email she sent to officials including Stringfellow, school board members and Mayor Peter Nystrom went unanswered.
“I feel lucky to have friends in the system, so I’m aware of things that are going on, and I feel bad that there are parents out there who don’t know this stuff is going on,” she declared.
School board president Heather Romanski and Nystrom did not respond to calls for comment.
Carter compared the lack of communication around what she called the behavioral therapist’s assault to a situation two years ago when a student brought a Nerf gun on the bus.
“The school system immediately sent text messages, emails and letters to every family in the school system because a child brought a Nerf gun on the school bus and yet people are physically injured and we can’t hear nothing about it, ”she said. noted.
Stringfellow reiterated that there was nothing to say to the parents as no assault had taken place. She said she didn’t respond to Carter’s email as it was sent en masse and she didn’t think the sender was expecting a response from her.
She said administrators return all direct communications within 24 hours.
For Stringfellow, the problem is that the kids are struggling.
“If you tell me ‘these are very young students who are having a hard time making it through school, the answer is yes,” she said. “If you say’ are our staff being assaulted ‘ , The answer is no.”
She asked members of the school community for empathy towards struggling children.
Often young children communicate through behavior. They don’t know why they are uncomfortable or upset, but they are – and when they are unable to find the words to describe to adults what is going on in them. their minds or their emotions, then they might drop a book on the floor or kick a chair and act that way, ”she said.“ It’s our responsibility as adults to unpack what’s going on. “
She said the district’s registered behavior technicians are trained to address these issues.
But Carter still wants reassurance that a behavioral technician will be assigned to the school, as the staff member she said injured had already announced that she was leaving next week for a new job.
Stringfellow could not confirm whether the position had been filled as she did not have access to her computer, she said. She said she would follow up with the district special education director next week.
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